Indian State to Free 7 Convicted in Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Plot

By Neha Thirani Bagri

Feb. 19, 2014

MUMBAI, India — The chief minister of Tamil Nadu said Wednesday that her government would free six men and one woman who were convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister of India.

The minister, J. Jayalalithaa, said her government had the authority to free the prisoners, who have been incarcerated in Tamil Nadu since 1991. She gave the federal government three days to respond.

The announcement came a day after the Supreme Court commuted the death sentences of three of the men to life imprisonment, saying they had been on death row for too long, constituting cruel and unusual punishment. This paved the way for the decision to free the seven prisoners.

Ms. Jayalalithaa’s announcement was seen by many analysts as a strategic move to shore up local pro-Tamil sentiment before elections for the lower house of Parliament, as well as part of a wider movement by Indian states to challenge New Delhi over the use of the death penalty, which they view as often political in nature.

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In 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning in Tamil Nadu when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in her clothes as she handed him flowers.CreditStefan Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In 1991, Mr. Gandhi was campaigning for the party Indian National Congress in Tamil Nadu when a suicide bomber, a Tamil from Sri Lanka, detonated explosives in her clothes as she handed him flowers.

Prosecutors said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist organization from Sri Lanka, was behind the killing of Mr. Gandhi because as prime minister he sent Indian troops to put down the Tamil rebellion during the Sri Lankan civil war.

A total of 26 people were found guilty of conspiring to kill Mr. Gandhi, the husband of Sonia Gandhi, the current president of Congress, and the father of Rahul Gandhi, the party’s vice president. Nineteen were later acquitted.

While it was Ms. Jayalalithaa, leader of the party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, who made the announcement, the prisoner release was backed by other state political parties.

“All political parties in the state are vying with one another to cater to the Sri Lankan Tamil population,” said Rajeev Sharma, the author of “Beyond the Tigers: Tracking Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination.”

“Their political goal is to use the Sri Lankan Tamil issue to further their domestic political agenda.”

In Tamil Nadu, the case of the Gandhi assassination provides the state with an opportunity to assert its authority over New Delhi. Ms. Jayalalithaa cited as the legal basis for her decision Section 432 of the criminal code, which states, “When any person has been sentenced to punishment for an offense, the appropriate government” may “suspend the execution of his sentence or remit the whole or any part of the punishment to which he has been sentenced.”

One legal expert said since the prisoners were eventually convicted under the Indian Penal Code, which falls under state jurisdiction, the “appropriate government” in this case would be the state government.

Rajshekhar Rao, an advocate who practices before the Supreme Court, said that the seven people were convicted in a special court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, which falls under the central government’s jurisdiction. But the Supreme Court eventually set aside that conviction.

As a result, in the Tamil Nadu case, “the views of the central government may be taken by the state, but would not be binding upon it,” he said.

Correction:

An article on Thursday about an announcement by the government of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu that seven prisoners who were convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister of India, would be freed referred incorrectly to the prisoners. The group includes six men and one woman, not seven men.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Indian State to Release 7 Convicted in Assassination Plot. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe